"Your heads are shaped differently from Pitson's," Prescott went on. "The top of his head goes up to a point. If a mule had a head shaped like that our veterinary surgeons would call it a fool mule and reject it. But you men have heads expressing more intelligence. "What is the matter with you two? Have you been listening to socialistic or other freak talk? Do you realize that the German Kaiser and his nation threaten the freedom of the world? Do you realize that the Germans want to rule this world, and do you know how they would rule it, and what a miserable, impossible world it would be for free men to live in? "Do you realize that the only way we can stop the Germans from ruling the world in their own brutal way is for the free men of all good nations to fight? Do you fully understand that we cannot fight such a beastly enemy in any other way than by killing him? Do you so thoroughly object to fighting that you would see a free world ground under the heel of the despotic Kaiser sooner than help kill his soldiers and thus prevent such a world-wide tragedy? Are you men, or are you dish-rags? Are your consciences so important that you would put the world in cruel bondage rather than violate your own little personal ideas of what is moral? Are you men so sure you're right that you'd dodge a slight wrong---if wrong it be---and allow the greatest wrong ever attempted to triumph? Do your moral principles tell you that it is better to let Shame rule the world instead of Justice?" Ellis and Rindle were plainly non-plussed by Dick's passionate appeal to their broader sense of right and truth. "I'm afraid you two have been patting yourselves on the back in the idea that you stood out for a great moral principle," Captain Prescott resumed. "Don't you begin to see that the fact is that, instead, you're really moral slackers who'd let the world go into the devil's keeping provided you didn't have to be made to do something that you don't want to do? I won't say you're physical cowards, for honestly I hardly think you are, but aren't you at least moral slackers?" Private Ellis swallowed hard before he replied: "No, sir; I'm not a moral slacker, for I've changed my mind. I'm going to fight if I'm told to. I'm going to do whatever Uncle Sam wants me to do. You've put the matter in a different light to me, Captain Prescott." "And you, Rindle?" "I'm going to do myself the honor of asking permission to remain in your company, sir," replied the second man, his mouth twitching. "I'm a bit of a fool, sir. But I don't believe that I'm a fool all the way through. I believe that I can see at least part of a truth when it's put to me fairly, and now I believe that it's right to fight for truth and justice as against black tyranny---and I'm ready to do it."